1. Field of The Invention
Applicant's invention relates to preparations useful in cleaning and waxing vehicles with smooth exterior surfaces, such as airplanes, automobiles and marine craft.
2. Background Information
While Applicant's cleaning and waxing preparation as described below has considerable utility with any vehicle having a smooth exterior surface, such as airplanes, automobiles, and boats, the benefits provided by Applicant's invention will likely be most appreciated, and contribute most significantly to segments of our economy which rely on aircraft.
Aircraft must be routinely cleaned to remove accumulated dirt, soot, and other pollutants gathered on skin surfaces during operation. Allowing debris to accumulate adversely affects economy of operation. Contaminants on a aircraft's skin creates an uneven surface over which air flows more turbulently, thus requiring greater force (and fuel) to propel the aircraft at desired air speed. The significance of this effect is evidenced by a recent United Parcel Service television commercial in which the company touted its more frequently that normal plane washing schedule for its resulting savings of millions of gallons of fuel each year. Particularly in the commercial realm, dirty aircraft also present an aesthetics and public image problem.
A serious problem faces the airline and aircraft maintenance industries in connection with their cleaning operations. The problem arises from the heretofore incompatible needs to minimize pollution of ground surfaces and ground water from the resulting mixtures of removed contaminants and cleaning solutions.
This problem is real, and not simply the product of theory, or of environmental idealism. Airlines have spent millions of dollars constructing wash racks for their airplanes, only to find that they produce too much contaminant run-off to be permitted to operate. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has actually suspended operation of some such wash racks for this reason, at substantial cost to the owners.
Even if modifications to large, commercial airliner sized wash racks are eventually achieved to adequately address the toxic run-off problems, the problems remain in association with cleaning aircraft of non-major carriers, such as those of smaller, commuter airlines and private planes. These planes must be cleaned, but in most cases will not likely have access to the wash racks which may have been modified to meet EPA standards, and certainly cannot afford to construct their own acceptable wash racks. Hand washing of a plane, much in the manner of washing a car in one's front yard, will likely result in EPA fines. In any event, hand washing cannot take place on the tarmac, but rather requires removal to a service area. This, in turn, means that, if hand washing is the only option for cleaning a plane, it will not occur nearly as frequently as if some process were available to quickly and inexpensively clean the aircraft, such as during short stops along a flight route.
New solutions for cleaning aircraft are clearly needed. Ideal would be any preparation and attendant process which permits quick and inexpensive cleaning of an aircraft and produces a clean and waxed surface.